30
Nov
‘I lose a stone in weight during panto season’
Tim Stedman is, after Father Christmas, perhaps the busiest man in Harrogate every December.
For 24 years he has been throwing himself around the stage at Harrogate Theatre in high-energy productions twice a day, up to six days a week during panto season.
It isn’t the easiest way for a man aged 54 to make a living but there will be plenty of children — and quite a few adults — crying over their festive turkey when he is no longer part of the town’s pantomime.
Fortunately, that day seems some way off, judging by his not entirely serious response when we asked how much longer he intends to keep going:
I have done 24 years, so I reckon I’m halfway there.
We spoke to Tim at Friday’s launch of the Harrogate Christmas single, which took place at the Yorkshire Hotel at 8am — 11 hours before the curtain was due to go up on opening night of Beauty and the Beast, in which he plays Phillipe Fillop.
You might expect him to be making the most of a final lie-in before panto season gets underway, but he was there in full panto persona, delighting the crowd.
He may be the town’s best-known actor but there’s nothing luvvie about him. You’d struggle to meet a more helpful star. He was trying to eat a bacon butty at the Yorkshire Hotel but eventually gave up due to all the requests for a quick photo or chat. Typically, he obliged each one.
With co-stars of this year's pantomime.
Beauty and the Best runs until January 19. Without having seen it yet, it’s safe to assume Tim will be playing the fool, gently humiliating a man in the front row and engaging in some hilariously daft skits.
Nobody does it better and it really wouldn’t be Christmas in Harrogate without him. Fortunately, the love goes both ways. Tim, who lives in Newbury in Berkshire but relocates to Harrogate every panto season, says:
If you are going to be away from your family and friends at Christmas, I can’t think of anywhere nicer to be so it’s lovely to be back.
He gets Christmas Day and New Year’s Day off, when he will dash back home but the schedule is punishing and performing in front of a live audience for more than four hours a day must be exhausting. “It is hard. I lose over a stone during the run,” he says.
So for the next two months his main home is Harrogate. He looks somewhat different without the costume and make-up, which is probably just as well as he’d be constantly stopped in the street, but he is occasionally recognised. He says:
What’s lovely is it’s usually the kids. The kids look at you and do a double take. You just smile and walk on by, That’s quite sweet, I like that.
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So what can people expect this year?
It’s Beauty and the Beast so it’s very magical. There’s a wonderful love story running through the centre of it, around that there is all the magic and fun and chaos that panto brings with it. I particularly like this panto because it’s got the wonderful story that you can follow but it’s also got all the usual pantomime stuff.
The “usual pantomime stuff” might not sound that exciting. But the prospect of Tim Stedman doing his usual thing is enough to ensure most people will go home from the panto with smiles on their faces and magic in their hearts.
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